Salmon fishing on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers

After dropping my son off at Grandma's for the day, I met my friend John at the Swan Island boat ramp to try my hand at catching a chinook. John and his dad were nice enough to pick me up in their boat with everything ready to go.

By the time I arrived, they had already been fishing for a few hours. They had one bite, but an otherwise slow morning. Unfortunately the trend continued after I joined the boat. I had one hit on a spinner, but nothing else after that. We had bait on the other two rods, but couldn't get any takers there either. We only saw a few other boats fishing the Willamette, but one lucky guy did manage to land a fish.

By afternoon, we decided to take a quick run down to the Columbia to see if it was any better. There were more boats, but we didn't have any luck their either. We decided to pack up and head home before traffic became too bad.